Squash Magazine

Faces in the Crowd Snapshots from the Intercollegiate Individual Champs By Beth Rasin All Photos by Beth Rasin, except Amina Helal (courtesy Trinity College)

Amina Helal Amina Helal comes by her squash talent innately. Her father is a former British champion, who moved from Egypt to England, the home of Amina’s mother. At 10, she played none other than Jahangir Khan. “I lost by only one point, 10-9,” she says with a broad smile. Recently she trained with another squash legend, Sarah Fitz-Gerald. “It brought my game up 10 levels.” Amina found herself at Trinity after electing not to join the professional circuit at age 18 like most of her teammates on England’s junior girls team. “I wanted to go to university and also keep my squash going. When my plans for attending university in England fell through, Wendy Bartlett called me to see if I wanted to go to Trinity. I figured why not.” Why not indeed—particularly if you are going to be on a championship team. Amina, who shows up at the courts to train two, and sometimes three times a day, often plays with the men’s team, which makes it not as much of a problem for her to indulge in her favorite food—cookies. “The homemade ones that the parents bring to the courts,” are, as she says, the best. Louisa Hall “Harvard has been more than I could have imagined,” says sophomore Louisa Hall, who was the top-ranked junior in the US before heading off to college. “Learning to think for myself” is what she says that she has learned from coach Satinder Bajwa. And she is delighted that the international players have come to the US schools. “Before when you went to college, it was like you really had to put the competitive aspect of yourself in the closet. But now there are these new faces who have made it competitive.” Javier Castillo The young man from Colombia is another squash player who wanted to continue to play squash while he finished his education. “So I started writing to all these universities,” he says. John Bridge, the Denison University coach, wrote back. Impressed with the fact that Coach Bridge took the time to keep up the correspondence, and that Denison had a good reputation for environmental studies, Castillo applied only to Denison. Javier’s biggest challenge is maintaining the level of his game. Denison’s Midwest location means the team only makes two trips east; as a result, Castillo doesn’t get a steady diet of tough competition. When asked what he likes least about the US, Castillo says, “The fast food is killing me.” The best thing about being in the US? “Getting to meet so many people because of squash.” Olga Puidgemont Sola Olga Puidgemont Sola says that when Richard Millman called her almost five years ago to see if she wanted to go to Cornell, “It was the answer to my question.” The question for Olga had been how she was going to combine competitive squash with academics. Like many of the international players, she found that the only place where that was possible was here in the US. Olga, whose enthusiasm for her American college experience is infectious, is very proud that the Cornell women’s team has become ranked fifth in the country after only five years of being in existence. Nonetheless, she has found that adapting to the team experience was the most difficult part of her transition to US college life. “Squash is such an individual sport. Sometimes what is good for the team is not good for me as a player.” She has managed to find the right balance though, ending her career as the No. 6 seed in the women’s singles championship and as the winner of this year’s Betty Richey Award. Ryan Donegan Ryan Donegan, the No. 1 player at Dartmouth, carried himself quite well in his freshman year. The No. 8 seed in the men’s draw was joined by only one other US player, Richard Repetto, in the top eight seedings. In fact, Donegan has eclipsed some of the US players who were better known than he was in the junior ranks. “It was tough to move up in the ranking,” said Donegan, whose junior tournament play was limited by the fact that he lived in New Orleans, and he had to travel a lot to play any tournament. After high school, Donegan made a big trip. Instead of going to college right away, he went to England to work on his squash game. Donegan struggled with injuries at the last event of the squash season, and was disappointed with his results. His coach, John Power, who knows a thing or two about talent, is confident that his No. 1 player will only continue to improve. Bernardo Samper How did Bernardo end up at Trinity? Paul Assaiante struck up a conversation with the talented Colombian at the 1999 Pan American Games in the place where all great deals are struck—the steam room. Once the seed was planted, the idea of attending school in the US took hold. Samper spent a year at university in his homeland to improve his English, which also gave him the opportunity to hone his game. For Samper, the team part of college squash was easy. The student part of student-athlete was a little tougher. “That first month was the toughest—getting used to the studies,” he recalls. Once he made it through that first semester with a B average, Trinity life fell into place. “Since January, I have been thinking about the singles championship,” Bernardo said. The thoughts became a reality—and Bernardo left Princeton a very happy fellow. Will Evans Will Evans first visited Princeton as a member of the New Zealand junior boys team who played in the 1998 World Championships hosted by the university. It wasn’t the squash facilities that persuaded him to matriculate. “A couple of hours in the art museum is what made me decide I should go to school here,” he says. Asked about the toughest part of adjusting to Princeton life, Will says, “The team aspect was terrible.” Like several of the other international players, absorbing the team culture took a little time. He has been delighted with the university’s proximity to New York city, and often takes the train in for a change of pace from college life. As for his squash, Will was focused from the moment he lost in last year’s quarterfinals on winning this year’s championship. Coach Callahan says, “He has worked harder than anyone else, harder than it seems possible that someone can work.’ Although the hard work did not provide him with the ultimate reward this year, the New Zealander is probably already training for next year.